HOW TO REMAIN CALM DURING GLOBAL PANDEMIC TIME

Encouraged by current world events, I decided to write an inspirational post about our main emotion:

FEAR

Let’s be frank. Fear is good. Don’t you feel the same?

I mean, if we haven’t had a fear, we would have much higher chances of dying, right!?

Some of us would be unstoppable in extreme sports. Some of us would go much deeper into discovering dangerous hidden places and enormous, risky natural wonders. Some of us would maybe take much higher risks in our businesses and lives in general. We wouldn’t be able to resonate much dangerous environment from a safe one.

To put it another way, fear is an emotion that wakes up adrenaline flowing in our vessels and at the same time it leaves us feeling somehow uncomfortable in our own skin.

Fear causes physiological and behavior changes and it’s proven scientifically that every kind of fear we feel is closely connected to death.

In other words, we are all afraid of dying of some kind.

As I am a huge Michael Stevens fan, in his Mind Field series about fear, it is researched and revealed how humans actually share one fear which is:

“elevation of carbon dioxide in the blood caused by an uncontrollable external threat.”

To give you an example, that can be suffocating under extreme conditions such as drowning. To give an illustration of what I mean, have a look at Michael’s episode as well as all the other previous episodes especially if you are bit nerdy for facts and knowledge like I am. 🙂

Note: Some Michael’s sayings I included in this article.

But…why am I writing about this at all? Well…I guess you all know the answer:

“Fear is an innate aversion. Our ancestors have survived long enough and avoided danger to reproduce and to make creatures likes us. We are organisms that instinctively avoid and averse to potentially dangerous sensations. Sensations such as pain, or being sick….”

As I already mentioned, death is a center of all of our webs of fear. Survival. It’s why we are here.

“Our brain is kind of a prediction processor. We always try to predict what is going to happen next. So anything that comes and it doesn’t match our templates or sense categories, we start to be cognitively and emotionally aroused.”

This leads to activation both of our amygdalas (“fear center” of the brain) and it makes us little suspicious or at least puts us on our toes again. Two Amygdalas are telling us what should we remember, what should we learn upon our survival.

That is why we are so much afraid of corona virus.

To put it differently, we are not afraid of corona virus or economic crisis; we are afraid of dying. We are afraid of suffocating.

However, even if things are not working out right now well for nobody, we shouldn’t be desperate.

“Remember, the world has been in much worse situations. Humanity was suffering lot more before than right now. Much of the horror the world went through.

Find comfort and strength in a fact that you are the result of thousands years of struggle for the human race to build, sustain and, if need to be, to rebuild its civilization, its unstoppable quest to improve living conditions.

It is obvious that today we are living in the most prosperous and safest moment in history.It’s not the end of the world.

It’s not the end of civilization either. This is the current realization that we all need to understand.

As early as the Bronze Age, almost all civilizations were wiped out. Still, no one has any idea how. Droughts, revolutions, wars, diseases…..maybe all together.When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, many thought that civilization had disappeared irreversibly. But it survived in the Eastern Empire and rebuilt very quickly in the west.

The Middle Ages were not the stagnation of civilization. China as a civilization also collapsed many times, rising again.Troy burned at least six times and was rebuilt each time.

We all carry the strengths, strengths of the builders of Rome, Troy, Alexandria, Athens, the builders of the pyramids, the Colosseum, the Acropolis…

The results are brutal historical selection. Maybe in good time these self-preserving genes have made us inactive. But they are there.

We have more power in ourselves than we think.

Civilization does not perish, it always survives. Everything else is just a reminder of our strength.And this will pass.

And then let’s go build again. Even better.So don’t despair.”

Note: The last sentences under quotation marks are also taken from other person which is not Michael Stevens but my good friend, an economist and a writer: Branimir Perković. I am more than happy to often read positive thoughts around me as mine thoughts are always positive too.

Furthermore on fear topic, did you know that exposure therapy can help people overcome their fears!? Literally, it means confronting your fears in order to overcome them.

Well, the same principles can be used to create fears.

So, be careful what you read and what you watch.

I am not saying that you should go outside and confront the virus because even if you want to – you can’t and you are forbidden to (unless you want to confront the police officer and a fine or even a prison).

But in general, confronting fear is nothing but a good thing. To be frank, I’ve had numerous fears until I started defeating myfears and owning them before they completely started to own me.

Today, I even have a fearless woman T-shirt (lol).

To summarize, have some fears but also be fearless in the same time in order to take certain risks and chances that life and moments are offering you.

I hope my article was enough inspiring and useful to at least calm you down a bit in these weird times. I wish you lots of love, positive vibes and plenty of health.